Scene From A Dream

Doesn't this just look like something you'd see in a dream? Well, it does for me. I have been having the worst bout of insomnia. I hate laying there wide awake watching the hours tick by... and if I do manage to doze off, I often end up in a place like this!

I think it has to do with brain overload. There is so much I'm involved in right now. My brain races all of the time from one project to the next. I'll be working on dying some fabric and then think about a technique I want to try in my journal. Then I'll go and do something else and get distracted because I'm not organized (despite the cleaner studio area) and I have to spend time looking for something. And when I finally get to bed my mind really speeds up. It's a phase that I go through from time to time. I've read that some people in menopause have bouts with insomnia. Better look into that...

But I'm taking notes as fast as I can. Today I spent a lot of time giving myself permission to make bad art. I wanted to try some techniques in my journal that I'd been thinking about. And I even made up a few of my own. I let myself ask the question: what would happen if I did... and I'm finding out. I found out that I LOVE the gel transfer technique. I took an old photo of me as a child and transferred that into one of my journals. I'm still working at getting the right amount of gel for it to look like I want but now I know the technique can look cool. I finally found some fabric foil to play with and am foiling all kinds of snippets of my fabric paper with beautiful results. I'm trying it out with scraps first before I use the nice pieces. I also played with dying some paper towels that turned out so vibrant I can't wait to cut them up for collage work. I made some clay tiles using an old package of air dry clay. I even did some of my own experiments with crackle medium. Some worked, some didn't. But now I KNOW.

So today was very productive. I'm sitting here looking at all of these little experiments feeling pretty good about them. I even managed to get out today and take some cool photos for my photojournaling class. I love taking photographs and I don't know why I procrastinate about doing that. I need to build up my archive for LK Ludwig's class. Often, she'll say to search your archive for a photo about something and I have to admit my archive of personal photos is very low. This week she wants us to shoot tons of photos so I'm making myself do that. Now, if only I can get more than a couple hours of sleep at a time, life would be perfect. ;)

By the way, credit for this cool background room goes to Norbert Lov. He has an amazing flickr site full of these kinds of photographs. Check him out.